FAITH AND POLITICS: “Timothy Goeglein on Redemption after Plagiarism.”

Timothy Goeglein was a special assistant to President George W. Bush. In 2008, he resigned after a reporter revealed that he had plagiarized several columns in an Indiana newspaper. In this interview, he talks about that experience, but he also answers the following question:

Some complain that evangelicals have been too involved with the Republican Party in predictable ways. Are you concerned about that?

I am. You had this rise of people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell who helped bring a lot of people into public life, which I think is a good thing. A certain duty of the Christian life is to vote and to be involved. But I also believe in prudence. The U.S. Constitution is not the Bible. A political party is not the church.

Read the whole thing.

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BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: “Will this year’s hajj have an ‘Arab Spring’ effect?”

Some experts are watching for potential flare-ups in Saudi Arabia, a country governed by an unelected royal family and where freedoms are limited. They note that ordinary Saudis will be rubbing shoulders with Arabs making pilgrimages from countries that have staged anti-government demonstrations and have unseated long-entrenched regimes.

“This idea of freedom and dignity is spreading like wildfire, and at a gathering like the Hajj it’s conceivable that the electricity coming from these ideas will be picked up,” says Akbar Ahmed, the chair of Islamic Studies at American University. “This is what scares the Saudi bureaucracy.”

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SELFISH REASONS TO HAVE MORE KIDS: “An Economic Case for More Kids?”

Despite some serious shortcomings in the final analysis, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids is a worthwhile read, if for no other reason than that it offers an accessible, convincing look at the reasons that many modern parenting practices are untenable. From the perspective of an economic theorist, Caplan appreciates the value of human life—so much so that he attempts to argue that another life (or two) is almost always an objective good for the family. But his moral prowess comes up short, and all his value judgments about natural goods are reduced to calculable costs in the marketplace of utility. It’s unfortunate that, for all the skill and innovation of Caplan’s initial arguments, he fails to realize that overextending economic calculus into the realm of moral philosophy does more to hurt than to help his case. But to separate this shortcoming from the book’s valuable undercurrents won’t be too difficult a task for the discerning reader.

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CELEBRITY MARRIAGES DIVORCES:“Kim and Kris. Ben and Zooey. Why can’t our culture commit to marriage?”

It is in Hollywood’s moral-deficient, anything-goes culture that we find a bit of truth about the value of marriage. Sex is given and taken freely, and there is no such thing as a woman needing to marry for money or security. More attention is received than even desired, and the entire celebrity population has been blessed with the good looks to lock down enough self-esteem for all eternity.

The role models of America are guaranteed sex, attention, fun, friends and money wherever they go, whenever they want it. What else could marriage possibly have to offer to someone living this lifestyle?

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SANGER SILLINESS: “Fact checkers agree: Lay off Sanger’s eugenics!”

This Sanger silliness — calling critics of her eugenics liars instead of people who simply disagree with the prevailing views of journalists on sanctity of life issues — is a great example of the flaws of the “fact check” trend in modern journalism. They conflate and confuse facts and ideology. They rather shockingly hide the facts on Sanger’s eugenics, sure. But they also fail to see that people interpret things such as Sanger’s eugenicism according to their own religious and ideological views. Sanger’s views on race and eugenics are perhaps more easily contextualized by pro-choice journalists than the views of Nathan Bedford Forrest or Adolph Hitler would be, but some just reject the “other people were doing it, too” argument. They might reject that argument as specious or unimportant or irrelevant. That doesn’t mean that they’re liars or the contextualizers are liars. It does mean that they disagree on race issues, sanctity of life issues, quality of arguments or any number of other things.

Read this too.

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CONVICTIONS, TANGENTS, FANATICISM: “How Christians Can Avoid Tangents and Fanaticism.”

Think of it this way. Every Christian has opinions on many secondary areas of doctrine and practice. I am talking about things that are not essential for salvation. This is the level I call “Convictions.” Picture it being the center circle of several concentric circles. At this level, Christians differ from one another on a multitude of perspectives and practices. It doesn’t change the fact that every believer, regardless of his other convictions, is saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. We are one in Christ through the blood that He shed to make us His own. We are family forever.

The next level out from “Convictions” is “Tangents.” A Christian moves to this level when he is constantly dwelling on his conviction about a secondary issue of doctrine or practice. He is no longer keeping the main thing the main thing. Rather than maintaining a balanced approach to Scripture and discipleship, he has gone off on a mental tangent and it has caused him to become restless in his heart and mind. His tangent has taken away his joy of walking with Jesus, as well as the joy of fellowship with others in the body of Christ.

The third level is even worse than the second. This is the level of “Fanaticism.” This happens when a Christian starts sharing his tangent with others. He feels compelled to get them to see it the way he sees it. He becomes fanatical in his quest to win them over to his point of view on a secondary issue. It wasn’t enough to just go off on a tangent. He now is obsessed with having others adopt his tangent. His message is no longer the Gospel. He has turned his tangent into his great commission. He is a self-appointed prophet with a personal agenda for God’s church.

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RAPTURE WATCH: “Family Radio Founder Harold Camping Repents, Apologizes for False Teachings.”

With his speech sounding somewhat slurred and labored, Family Radio Stations Inc. founder and chairman Harold Camping sought to address in a recent message why Christ failed to return on Oct. 21 as the Bible teacher had predicted. Camping confessed, after decades of falsely misleading his followers, that he was wrong and regrets his misdeeds.

But did he actually repent or apologize?

This isn’t just not an apology, it’s a statement that, in a very real way, it’s not even possible for Camping to have been wrong. He is, in a sense, hermetically sealed against error, since even when he was wrong, that too was from God. God gives truth, which Camping relays, and God gives lies, which Camping also relays. But they aren’t lies, exactly, but a method of teaching God uses.

Camping admits he was wrong, but only in the most technical way. He wasn’t really wrong, he is saying, because he trusts God, and was just passing God’s false prophecy along. It’s not that he’s wrong, that’s not the point, and not that he’s sorry. This, Camping says, is just “how God brings His messages to mankind.” Apology and repentance this is not.

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OWS SUPPORTERS, NATURALLY: “Fatuous Ivy League Twits.”

I’m all for these privileged students coming to realize their own responsibilities to the broader society, especially given what’s happening now with Wall Street and the recklessness of financial elites (many of them Ivy grads).

But walking out of a class to protest the way the professor teaches it is tantrummy silliness (I doubt very much they would be complaining about the lack of intellectual diversity in the class if the teacher were a doctrinaire Marxist who followed an exclusivist pedagogy instead of a former Bush administration official).

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EVEN THE PASTOR? “A Congregation in Skinny Jeans.”

While only one-quarter of the so-called millennial generation, those born after 1980, attend weekly religious services (according to a study by the Pew Research Center), young pastors like Mr. Aiuto and Jay Bakker, the son of the televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye, as well as groups like the Buddhist-inspired Dharma Punx, are tailoring their messages to young worshipers.

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RESEARCH ON RELIGION: Over at National Affairs, Kevin Lewis offers a roundup of recent social-science research on religion. Interesting.